Incidentally, thank you for asking, jxub. It must encourage the mods a lot to read stories like the ones I've read here, and being a forum moderator is ordinarily among the most thankless of tasks.
Ask HN: What has HN given you?
311–320 of 602 posts
Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#312It indirectly funded my work on a personal project - Neovim - for nearly two years.
The work was actually funded through bountysource, but without the momentum gained by my post HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7278214), which stayed in the front page for more than 12 hours, the bountysource campaign may not have been successful.
HN had a major impact on Neovim being a successful open source project.
Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#313a mostly politics free zone where interesting technical news and odd but also interesting subjects could be discussed as well as expanded upon by people who are good in the associated field.
I still think politics; especially US; appears too much. Some stories submitted are little more than hit pieces but fortunately flagging does help
Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#314A gigantic inferiority complex
I feel you. For any given subject there are 140 people who are an order of magnitude better/more skilled/smarter than you, and can make much better points in with less text.
On the other hand, remember the saying: "Aim for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll end up among the stars."
I keep consoling myself that it's not just about having the most stat points in a single skill. There are projects which can only be accomplished by jacks-of-all-trades, or people who are knowledgeable about several domains. But it requires good self-knowledge. For example, if you have an analytical mind, like animals, have a sense of aesthetics, and patience, you can excel at Origami.
Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#315Nearly 5 years ago, a few months after being rejected from YC and a few weeks from being essentially bankrupt (my daughter had an unexpected surgery while we had only catastrophic health insurance), my brother and I posted a Show HN about Webflow ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5407499 ). It was our last-ditch attempt to show a proof-of-concept to the world before going back to our old bosses to ask for our jo…
Nearly 5 years ago, a few months after being rejected from YC for the first time, I came across your Show HN and started using Webflow to build a mockup of my product's sign-up page (I did not know how to code at that time).
Over the next 2.5 years, I reapplied to YC five more times. I interviewed twice in the second round. I eventually got rejected every time. From the ideation stage, to $1M in revenue, YC has an application of mine for every milestone in between (until I did not need to raise money anymore).
My company, Y Athletics (https://yathletics.com), is a profitable business with no investor funding and 7 figure revenues. We've delivered products to over 25,000 paying customers all around the world. We don't solve problems, but we create some amazing products that people want.
This post about Webflow made me nostalgic as it was during that time that I started to read HN religiously (and now I discovered that Vlad and I applied and were rejected in the same batch as well). My first landing page was made on Webflow. I learned how to code using Codeacademy. My first 100 users came from a comment I posted on an Ask HN thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6617551). Seeing others building their startups inspired me to continue building mine. My company would probably not exist if it wasn't for HN. Thanks for everything!
Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#3161,5 years ago, i was suicidal ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13051611 ). 1 week after posting this. I got a visit from the police. Apparently, someone gave them the ip and it took them a week to locate me. They wanted to take me to the hospital to check if i had mental problems. Of course they couldn't force me to go. I assured them that i would fix my problems and make a therapy. It was a wakeup call for me.…
What happened to bioinformatics?
Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#317Introduced me to CyberChef (https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef) which has since become the open source project I contribute to frequently.
Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#318Impostor syndrome. jk Without HN, it's impossible to quantity how much tech/dev news I'd have missed out on. Plus, the comments are often even more insightful than the actual posts.
> the comments are often even more insightful than the actual posts.
Agree with that. I often just read the comments. The link is just a discussion topic.
Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#3191) News of new and potentially disruptive products and ideas.
2) The opportunity to read to insightful comments rather than always being sucked into flame wars. It’s not always the case but it’s more pro-constructive feedback and commentary than reddit, forums etc...
Re: Ask HN: What has HN given you?
#3203 years ago I was reading HN, wondering what could be improved in my work.
I felt a little bit of burnout but nothing that extreme, yet I wasn't satisfied.
I remember that to me the solution was remote work. I dreamed of it and coming from Italy it seemed like an impossible request.
I had this idea that even though our job might be good/great, our life isn't defined by our job. I still think this today. Our life is what we do after our job. Friends, family, travels.
In one comment a guy discussed the benefits he gained moving from the 9-5 job, to a part time job. I thought about it for a couple of months and decided to give it a go with my boss.
It went well, and even though I'd love to have the flexibility of remotework right now I'm really happy about this choice. To me nothing is comparable to being able to spend more time with the people you love.
Side effect of it: some other coworkers started evaluating part-time job as a possibility to increase their quality of life, which is amazing :)